


Something So Magic About You

by phodyl



Series: Valentine's Fic Week 2020 [1]
Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Auslog is heart eyes, Braham is a himbo and that's that on that, Braham is also heart eyes, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, Oblivious, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, and Toril is just annoyed, set during lws4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22656367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phodyl/pseuds/phodyl
Summary: “I can’t just ask out your girlfriend. I mean, for one, we’re grown adults, not teenagers. I don’t even think ‘ask out’ is a term that applies anymore, and--”“Braham,” Toril interrupted sternly.“Toril?”“I’m going to say this one more time, and then that’s the last time, and from there you’re going to have to figure the rest out on your own, okay?”“Okay?” Braham said, unsure.“Please, for the love of all the Spirits,pleaseask out my girlfriend.”
Relationships: Braham Eirsson/Original Character(s), OC/OC
Series: Valentine's Fic Week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1629871
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Something So Magic About You

**Author's Note:**

> It's day 1 of [tyrias-library's](https://tyrias-library.tumblr.com) Valentine's fic week! I'm very excited. The prompt for today is Confessions, so this is about how Braham and Auslog got together
> 
> Title is from "From Eden" by Hozier, bc I have an ongoing tendency to listen to Hozier while writing fanfiction. What can I say, I am but a simple sapphic
> 
> Side note: some of the dialogue in this is...uncomfortably close to some conversations I had with a couple friends not super long ago. I,,,,,,was not Toril in those situations. Basically what I'm saying is that I'm a useless, oblivious queer and I enjoy writing other useless, oblivious queers. I'm sure some of you can relate.

“Ugh, what do I _do,_ Toril?” Auslog asked, pacing their tent. 

Currently, Toril and Auslog and the rest of Dragon’s Watch were set up on a cliff in Sandswept Isles, overlooking Althoma, the Olmakhan village. Here, they could monitor any threats from above before they had a chance to cause serious problems, and nearby sand portals offered easy travel to the Inquest facility the next island over for anyone who had a jackal, as most of the guild did by this point. 

Toril followed the other norn with her eyes from her place on the pile of furs that served as their bed, watching with a smirk as Auslog placed her head in her hand.

“I dunno, babe,” Toril said with a shrug. “I always say you should just say something, so you already know that’s what I’m going to say. Do you need me to actually say it?”

Auslog stopped, turned to face her, and wrinkled her nose at her and made a grumbly sound.

“No,” she groaned. “Or yes. Maybe?” 

Toril chuckled.

“What if I say something,” Auslog explained, little drops of water gathering at her hands as she went, falling to the ground when she failed to pay attention to her magic, “and he doesn’t return my feelings, and then it makes everything awkward for everyone?”

“That’s not gonna happen, Aus,” Toril said.

“You don’t know that! How do you know that?”

“Because you’re both--well, okay.” Toril sighed heavily. “Because _you_ are emotionally intelligent and capable of being professional, and because _Braham_ will fall in line if I tell him to fall in line.” 

“But then you’ll have to--and we’ll--and _I_ \--and it would be _humiliating,_ and--and if he--but I _can’t_ \--and--”

“Aus, Aus, hey, stop,” Toril said, standing and wrapping her into a soft embrace. She placed a soothing hand on the elementalist’s back and used the other to gently toy with her hair. “This isn’t going to help anything, this agonizing over it. Either you do or you don’t, and that’s up to you. You just have to do what feels right. But I can’t tell you what that is, and pacing up and down our tent at a mile a minute won’t either. Plus,” she said teasingly, “you got the floor a little wet, and now it’s muddy in here.”

Auslog laughed, gripping Toril tighter and coiling her arms around the Commander’s neck. The elementalist gave her a quick peck on the cheek, stretching up on her toes, before untangling herself and looking up at Toril.

“I have one actual question for you though,” Auslog said. “I think it’s important.” 

“Shoot.”

“What if it makes it awkward for you? I mean, he’s your best friend. I wouldn’t want to put any kind of divide between you if it goes south.”

“Hey, how about you let me handle the particulars of my relationship with Braham?” Toril said, brushing a lock of hair from Auslog’s cheek and tucking it behind her ear. “Any problems that happen between me and him, regardless of what they have to do with, are between me and him. I would never, _ever_ blame _you_ for a problem I have with another person. You go after what you want, if you want to. Don’t worry about me. Please.”

Auslog sighed dramatically. 

“Okay,” she huffed, “I guess you’re right.”

“Of course I am,” Toril said with a scoff. “Aren’t I always?”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Make me.”

***

“Toril, I, uh--could I talk to you for a sec? Like, over there?” Braham said, gesturing past the tree line around their camp. 

It was supper time, most of the guild gathered around a large pot of stew over the fire at the center of the camp. The Commander took another bite from the bowl in her hands and then set it carefully on the stone bench beside her. (Having an elementalist around does have its perks, she mused as her knuckles brushed the smooth limestone.) 

“Sure, let’s go,” Toril said, getting up with a groan to follow him. “What’s going on?”

She grabbed a piece of bread as she went, dipping the corner of it into the pot of stew bubbling over the fire.

“Let’s, um--let’s wait until we’re...I don’t want anyone else to hear this.”

“What the hell is going on, Braham? You’re freaking me out.”

Once Braham was satisfied they were far enough, he turned to her and took a deep breath.

“Listen,” he said, “I think...Wolf help me, I don’t even know why I’m--this is a terrible idea, just--”

“Out with it,” Toril said impatiently.

“Okay, um, fine, it’s--I think I have feelings for your...partner.”

“Which one?”

“I’m sorry?” Braham said.

“Which partner?” Toril said around a mouthful of bread, brow furrowed. 

“Oh, I, um--well, it’s--”

“Auslog, right? You have a crush on Auslog?” the Commander said for him, unfazed.

“I’m not sure I like the phrasing there,” he said, “but yeah. Yeah, I think I do.”

“Okay, so talk to her about it,” she replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“But she’s your girlfriend,” Braham said. “It would--that’s weird, isn’t it?”

“You like her?” Toril asked.

Braham nodded.

“You’d like to have a romantic and/or sexual relationship with her?” Toril continued.

“I don’t--that’s so--how are you so _technical_ about this?”

“Experience,” Toril said flatly, biting off another bit of bread. “Now, would you?”

Braham sighed, ran his hands over his head, and nodded. 

“Good,” Toril said. “So talk to her.”

“What if it makes things weird?” Braham argued.

“What if it doesn’t?” Toril shot back.

“What if she doesn’t like me?” 

“What if she does?”

“What if she ends up hating me?

“What if she doesn’t?”

“You know what, I--” Braham grumbled. “I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea to even bring this up. I’m sorry. Just forget it. Forget I said anything.”

He stomped off, back toward camp, as Toril watched with a smirk. She rolled her eyes and bit off another chunk of bread before following.

***

“Toril, this is driving me _crazy_ ,” Auslog complained a few days later, once again pacing their tent. “I don’t know how much longer I can deal with him looking at me like _that_ , and his _eyes_ , and just...everything! What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to react when he’s over here just existing and looking like a-a-a fucking sculpture--and definitely better than any that I’ve made, and--”

“Hey. Aus. Babe. Look at me,” Toril said calmly, stepping in front of her and grabbing both of her shoulders. “You know the answer to this. You know what you _should_ do. So just, y’know, do it.”

“You say it like it’s so _easy_!” Auslog complained, shrugging her off and continuing to pace. “I don’t have your confidence. You don’t give a single shit about what anyone thinks or says about you--”

“That’s not true,” the Commander interjected.

“--but some of us aren’t lucky enough to have that,” Auslog continued, ignoring Toril’s input. “I know I need to just suck it up, but it’s...there’s so many things that could go _wrong_.”

“Auslog, you have stood beside me as I stared down two Elder Dragons, a mursaat, a fucking _god_ , and Raven knows what else,” Toril said, stopping her again with a hand on either side of her face. “If I have the courage to do that, then you have just as much. Maybe more. I’d be lost without you, and if Braham doesn’t see what I see, then that’s his loss. But you’ll never know if you don’t try.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re--you’re right,” Auslog said with a sigh, flopping onto a pile of blankets on the floor. “Just like always.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say _that_ ,” Toril said, sitting beside her. “But at least _most_ of the time, probably.”

The elementalist gently punched her arm before falling against her side, Toril quickly adjusting to hold her against her side, and for a while, they just sat like that, enjoying the quiet.

“Hey,” Auslog said softly after a few minutes had passed. “Did you mean all that? About being lost without me?”

“You know I did,” Toril answered.

“Yeah, I guess I do,” Auslog said, smiling. “I’d be lost without you, too, my love.”

“Oh, stop,” Toril said, playfully fighting back as Auslog stretched up to kiss her face.

***

“Look, I know you said I should just ask her,” Braham said, sitting next to Toril on the cliff overlooking Althoma, “but it just doesn’t _feel_ right.”

“Okay,” Toril said, considering. “Does it not feel right because you can’t see yourself in that kind of relationship with her, or does it not feel right because you’ve been conditioned into monogamy?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“If she weren’t also my girlfriend, would you feel comfortable asking her, say, to dinner?” Toril asked, then added, “In a romantic context, of course.” 

“Yeah, I think so,” Braham said. “Is that...is that bad?”

“Not at all,” Toril said. “Erlend and I had some hangups at first too. He wasn’t sure about the idea of being in a committed romantic relationship with someone already in a committed romantic relationship of their own. And it’s awkward at first, sure, but it gets easier. You start to find a new normal. A better one, in my opinion.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Braham said, sighing heavily. “But I just--you’re my best friend, Toril--”

“Aw, thanks,” the Commander cut in.

“Shush,” he said, bumping her shoulder with his. “But seriously, I can’t just ask out your girlfriend. I mean, for one, we’re grown adults, not teenagers. I don’t even think ‘ask out’ is a term that applies anymore, and--”

“Braham,” Toril interrupted sternly.

“Toril?”

“I’m going to say this one more time, and then that’s the last time, and from there you’re going to have to figure the rest out on your own, okay?”

“Okay?” Braham said, unsure.

“Please, for the love of all the Spirits, _please_ ask out my girlfriend.”

Braham rolled his eyes in response.

***

It had been two weeks.

Two weeks of two of the most important people in her life coming to her to complain about their own emotional incompetence. 

Toril was at her wits end. She wasn’t the type of person to tell one or even both of them that their feelings were mutual. That was a betrayal of trust, and even if it was probably for their own good, she felt uncomfortable with it.

So she couldn’t tell Auslog to just talk to Braham because he’s already interested, and she couldn’t tell Braham that Auslog had been complaining about how unfair it is for him to be _like that_ , and she couldn’t sit here and deal with the two of them anymore. Something had to be done.

She couldn’t tell them. But she _could_ encourage them to tell each other. (“Encourage,” of course, was a rather nice word for what she had planned. “Force” would probably be more accurate, but the former had a significantly more positive connotation.)

And so Toril found herself behind a desk in the command tent, the one that they used for planning and storage and arguments of a more professional nature, waiting for Kasmeer to fetch Braham and Auslog. When they finally entered together, Kas tagging along behind and closing the flap of the tent with a quick wink to the Commander, they looked both confused and terrified. Toril was, if she was honest with herself, a little ashamed of how much she was going to enjoy this.

“What’s going on, Boss?” Braham asked. “Kas said you needed to talk to us about something?”

“That I do,” Toril said, tapping her fingers together where they rested on the desk. “You’ve both been driving me absolutely _insane_ and it has to stop.” 

“What--what do you mean?” Auslog said, a rush of nervousness hitting her as she thought through the reasons Toril may have called them here like this.

“You both know I’m not the type of person,” Toril explained, “that tells someone else’s secrets. I won’t. I won’t betray your trust like that, either of you.”

“Okay…?” Braham said, brow furrowed.

“But I _can_ get you to tell each other,” Toril said.

The realization dawned on Auslog first, her eyes widening as she worked through everything this meant. It took Braham a bit longer, but eventually he responded with a simple, “Oh.”

“I’m going outside,” Toril said, standing and walking around them to the tent flap. She pushed it aside, stepping out and then turning to add, “Fucking _talk_ to each other. For my sake if nothing else.” And then she let the flap fall back into place and gave them their privacy.

“Well, that was…” Braham said, trailing off.

“...unexpected,” Auslog finished.

“Yeah,” he agreed. 

“Yeah.”

“Yeeaaaah...so…”

Auslog cleared her throat. “So I gather that you’ve spoken to Toril about me in a...romantic context?”

“Is that--is that the kind of conversation we’re going to have right now?” Braham asked, cocking his head to one side.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you...don’t sound like _you_. I wasn’t thinking we were gonna be so...clinical about it.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Auslog said. “I, um--I was kind of trying to channel Toril. That confidence she has, y’know? She’s always so sure of herself in situations like this, and I’m so...not.”

“Hey, that’s--I like that. I like _you._ ”

“Spirits, I feel like such an awkward mess.”

“I like awkward,” Braham assured. “Awkward is...cute.”

“Oh, you--you think so?” Auslog asked, blushing and looking toward the floor.

“Absolutely,” Braham declared, emboldened. “Everything about you is so...you’re so strong and so willful, but you’re also so incredibly gentle that it leaves me in awe. You care so deeply. You fight so fiercely not because you enjoy the fight, but because it protects innocents. You’re just--you’re a force, and I can’t help but be drawn to that.”

“I, uh--thanks, that was...I’m not sure what to say,” Auslog said. “I think between the shock of Toril dragging us here for this and hearing you say all that, I’m a little scrambled.”

“That’s alright,” Braham said. 

“I just know I like you. A lot. And I want more than being sort of your second best friend by proxy of Toril. I want to keep seeing you look at me like that. And I want to be closer to you. In every sense.”

“In that case,” Braham said, smiling, “would it be alright if I kissed you?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this fic! <3
> 
> If you like my writing, kudos and comments are always appreciated. 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [ineffablyadumbass,](https://ineffablyadumbass.tumblr.com) or on my gw2-specific blog [commander-passiflora](https://commander-passiflora.tumblr.com) where I post about updates and suchlike


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